UK drug laws are fundamentally ‘racist’ says ex No 10 adviser

Simon Woolley, a former race adviser to Downing Street during Theresa May’s premiership said drug laws are used “as a tool of systemic racism”.

He said current UK legislation, most of which was introduced 50 years ago, fail to reduce the supply and use of illegal substances, and that they cause “high levels of mental health harm” among black people.

“It creates anxiety, stress and alienation that contribute to the high levels of mental health harm experienced across our black communities,” he wrote in the British Medical Journal.

“For decades, politicians from all sides have either turned a blind eye to drug policy failures or weaponised the debate to score cheap political points,” he said, adding: “This has led to half a century of stagnation, which has landed with force on our black communities, driving up needless criminalisation and undermining relationships with the police.”

Woolley called for a review of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act and urged the medical profession to support a comprehensive review to consider alternative approaches.

He said the legislation had failed all groups, and black communities, in particular, stating that “Drug prohibition is racist in its DNA and in its impact on our society today”.

Scotland continues to have the worst drug death rate in Europe, while Drug-related deaths in England and Wales rose for their eighth consecutive year in 2020.